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Boat building becoming popular again
I don’t know how many boats were actually burned in
this part of the Placentia Bay during Resettlement. I was told of a few.
Many more boats were left to rot. When I came to Woody Island early in
1972, the beaches were littered with abandoned punts and skiffs. Some of
them still had their engine, shaft and propeller.
It seemed then that the inshore fishery and with it
the usefulness of such boats had come to an end. The construction at
Come-By-Chance was going at full blast, and more industry had been
promised for the area. The men who made marvelously high wages at the
refinery, and those young people who prepared themselves for an even
more prosperous future at the university in St. John’s, made no secret
of their belief that if the inshore fishery would survive at all, it
would do so as a small reservation for those too unintelligent to find
better employment.
What little interest was left for boats was mainly
directed toward fancy modern pleasure craft of aluminum or fiberglass,
with high-powered outboard engines.
In 1973 two local fellows tried to build such a
modern “speedboat” out of plywood, with windshield and steering wheel.
It turned out to be an ugly box-like affair which was soon abandoned.
But by then word had spread of the high earnings
realized by the few men who had stuck by the fishery after resettlement.
And perhaps some people discovered in themselves a hankering for the
traditional lifestyle that had been discarded. In 1974 Frank Shea
returned with his family from Labrador to this Island, and built a
“flat” with which he started lobstering in the next year. In 1975 Ron
Snow of Swift Current also started lobstering in a self-build flat.
It as the failure of the Come-by-Chance refinery,
with its grave economic consequences for the whole area, which brought
about a sorting out of those people who would go anywhere for a good
job, and those who decided to stay here as long as they could manage to
survive somehow.
Since the history of Newfoundland is largely one of
people managing to survive somehow in a harsh land, those people who in
our days have decided not to leave this island is search of better
opportunities elsewhere are turning again to traditional means of
survival. More people now grow vegetables than at any time since
Resettlement, more people around here own livestock, and boat building
has taken a sudden upswing.
I know of six boats that were built last winter in
Swift Current and Garden Cove, and two were build on this island. There
are some who down-grade this sudden boom in boat building saying “they
are only building boats because they cannot find jobs and have nothing
else to do.” Yet all the boats which I know were built specific purpose
by men who had a definite idea of what they wanted.
Ron Snow of Swift Current and Alec Stacey of Garden
Cove wanted large boats particularly suited for lobstering. Doug Lockyer
of Garden Cove wanted a good general purpose fishing boat with a house
for comfort. Sid Crocker of Swift Current, a retired merchant, wanted a
boat with which to go out jigging on fair days…. I myself had been
rowing my old dory every time I had to ho to the mainland. I did not
mind the six mile haul. I thought the exercise did me good and was glad
U dud not have to worry about the price of gasoline or the possibility
of the engine breaking down. But I got married this year and my wife is
expecting. I needed transportation that was less at the mercy of the
winds.
I don’t have much money, and since I was able to buy
a used 3 HP Atlantic engine for thirty dollars I decided to build a 17
ft. punt. I carried all the necessary lumber out of the woods on my
shoulder, and shaped all the timbers with a small aze. The whole boat,
engine included, cost me less then seventy-five dollars, and I am very
much pleased with it.
And when I consider the other fellows in this are who
built boats last winter. I am quite proud of the company I find myself
in.
Decks Awash
Volume 6, NO. 5, August 1977
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